


prior to the sunrise

by Junkyard_Rose



Series: mlm/wlw solidarity: the series [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Haircuts, Yasha the Barbarian Barber, does this count as a sleep over fic, mlm/wlw solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14960441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junkyard_Rose/pseuds/Junkyard_Rose
Summary: Caleb takes watch with Yasha more often now. Sometimes they talk; more often they don’t. They’re friends, so that’s okay, Caleb figures. One night – morning, probably, the sky is a hazy purple-grey, clouds shifting on the horizon like a mirage, the sky to the east slowly lightening with the promise of sunrise – Yasha clears her throat, a little awkward.





	prior to the sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> brief warning for caleb in general but specifically for mentions of traumatizing experiences while institutionalized; skip the paragraph after yasha offers to cut his hair to avoid.

Caleb takes watch with Yasha more often now. Sometimes they talk; more often they don’t. They’re friends, so that’s okay, Caleb figures.

One night – morning, probably, the sky is a hazy purple-grey, clouds shifting on the horizon like a mirage, the sky to the east slowly lightening with the promise of sunrise – Yasha clears her throat, a little awkward. Caleb’s been preoccupied with his hair for a while; he’s trying to comb the knots out with his fingers, untwist the little braids Jester’s clever hands made while he was far away looking through Frumpkin’s eyes, pluck out the stubborn flowers, dead and dried now, that Nott insists keep him safe, give him luck.

Yasha’s shoulders shift. She says, “I got you something.”

She never tries to make eye contact with him, which is nice, because it means he can look at her face freely. She’s being genuine, he thinks, not nervous, exactly, but something similar. She’s got something in her hands. A leather case, when she tosses it to him, cheap leather, something solid inside. Unclasping it he finds: a fine-toothed comb, cheap but sturdy, a small pair of metal scissors, a rectangular hand-held mirror, and a folded straight razor.

He says, “Oh.” Clears his throat. “Danke, Yasha. I don’t, uh. I don’t have anything to give you in return.”

“I don’t want anything in return,” she tells him. She’s got a very soft voice, for someone so big, and a very gentle way of talking. Caleb’s fingers dance over the case for a moment, unsure, and then he picks up the comb. Yasha is still looking at him.

“You might need to, um,” she says like she can’t help herself, “You might need to cut the worst of the tangles out.”

He’s never cut his own hair before, he thinks idly. He puts the comb down and picks up the little pair of scissors. His mother always did that, when he was a child, and then after he left home the Magister payed for barber visits, to keep him looking tidy and professional.

“I could do it for you,” Yasha says, like she had in the hollowed-out tree, hesitant but earnest. “If, you know, you want to tidy up a little?”

There’d always be lice outbreaks in the asylum; this was dealt with by the orderlies, holding him down and shaving his head with a rough dagger, taking off as much skin as they did hair. Ever since that – he’d never like people touching him, touching his hair, even before that – ever since he got out he’d been letting it grow. He never knew what to do with the long hair, let it tangle in front of his face or tied it back with a strip of leather.  

Yasha is, he thinks, one of the few people now he doesn’t mind touching him. Nott, of course, was the first. Beau, hesitantly, carefully. He thinks Beau might be as starved for touch as he is. And Yasha, huge, gentle Yasha.

Caleb says, “Ja, alright, that would be – that would be okay, I think.”

She sits behind him, cross-legged in the dirt. Touches him as little as possible, surprisingly dexterous hands snipping away the worst of the tangles, combing through the rest. She trims away the very ends of his hair – it’s long enough it will hardly be noticeable, she tells him, talking in her soft voice the whole time, the most words he’s ever heard her say. He focuses on her voice so he doesn’t float away out of his head.

At some point he becomes aware that Mollymauk is awake and watching them, catches the glint of red eyes in the dark, barely open, and then, before Caleb can panic, Mollymauk’s eyes slide closed and he rolls over, away from them.

“He’s good,” Yasha says behind him, and it takes Caleb a moment to process what she’s talking about. “He’s a good friend. A good person.”

“I think that too,” Caleb says. “I think so of Beauregard, also. Don’t you?”

Yasha’s hands pause for a moment. “Yes. She is, Beau is, uh. I agree. She is many things, she is a, a good, uh, fighter.”

“You are like a school child with a crush, tripping over your words,” Caleb says. He can’t quite hold back his laughter, half turns to look at her. Her pale face is very red. “It’s okay. Beau is worse.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Yasha says, struggling to hold a straight face.  She is really extraordinarily red. “You are – I am finished here.” She pauses. "Like you can talk about schoolyard crushes. Mister Caleb." She's grinning a little through her blush, and it turns into a laugh when he turns away, ducks his head. Instead of giving into the temptation to glance over towards Mollymauk, he reaches for the little mirror.

It has been – it has been a long time since he saw his own face as anything more than a dirty reflection in a puddle, in a tavern window. He would be more nervous, he thinks, if he was not here laughing with a friend. He looks – gaunt, hollow-cheeked, unshaven, dirty. The knots in his hair, however, have been snipped away, untangled. The split, dead ends have been cut away, and now it rest just above his collarbones, soft red waves threatening to spring back into the curls of his youth. He had forgotten that until just now, he realises. Yasha has managed to twist a braid into the side of his head without him noticing, pulling it away from his face. Nott will have wildflowers tucked into that before long, no doubt.

He looks nothing like he remembers, really. He thinks that might be a good thing.

“Thank you, Yasha,” he says, quietly. The sun is rising properly now, the purple sky turning to pink and orange and red. The others will be waking up soon, properly. He touches the little braid and tucks the mirror away.

“You’re welcome,” Yasha hands him the comb and the scissors and rises to her feet. She feeds another log to the campfire as she passes, bends down to tug up the blanket Beau has kicked off sometime during her sleep, and retakes her position, keeping watch on top of the cart. Caleb finds a spare pocket in his coat to tuck the shaving kit into and watches the sun finish crawling up the sky.


End file.
